Maura, when I ordered mine, I thought it was still like so many years ago (the last time I had chickens) that when you ordered pullets, you got 6 week old young hens. I had no idea they could sex tiny babies now and was shocked when my order came full of tiny day old chicks, had to scrabble to set up for them because I had thought I was getting older birds that could go right in the henhouse. So I had them in a make-shift brooder made out of a dog bathtub in the closet in my bedroom. Lol

I love my chickens. All of them (nine hens) have a distinct personality and each has a name. Several of them are extremely people oriented. I respect the wishes of those who don't want handling. They will provide me eggs, until they are too ole. Then, they will have a nice long retirement on me. No stew pot for the hens who gave me their all for so long.

The 22 chickens we board our horses with are all soooo fearless of the horses. The fly up on their backs and sit there. It's so cute.

The Buff Orps are very much loners, they go off by themselves and do not like to be handled. The leghorns are insane, all squawky and flapping wings if you even LOOK in their direction.

The friendliest are the Reds and the Barred rocks. We have one red and one rock that have NO fear of humans.....of course that means that when you try to shoo them away from something, they don't move. If you want to move them, you have to pick them up and carry them....cause stomping, shooing, running at them does NOTHING. They were handled since they were chicks, and have no fear of humans. Which is very annoying some days.

Beauseant, answering for Allison here but I believe her Phyllis is a Polish Crested. My best friend used to have one she kept here named Trixie lol

Jumper, have so say I'm pretty fond of Pierre. I may be getting a couple faverolle hens, I like the roo so well. He's easy going and super hand tame. Of course, he's immature yet, so we'll see how it goes, but I do really like him so far.

My dad has always always had chickens. My mom has told me that at one time he had close to 100 hens, along with 50 or so Turkey.
He got out of them for a few years, but I got him back into them. We raised Bantams and RIRs for a few years.
We had originally bought 20 RIR hens in the spring from a local auction. They were probably around a year old. We were keeping them for egg production. That summer a neighbours dog got loose and chewed threw the wire and squeezed into the coop threw a 10 inch wide door we had for the hens. The dog killed all but 3 hens. :(
A few weeks later we went to the auction we had bought the RIRs from, but all they had was Bantams. My dad was dead set on bringing home chickens, so we brought home 2 hens and 18 week old chicks.
The Bantams were the best mothers. We never lost a chick from that batch, even with having them free roam. Once one of the hens went broody, you could put anybody's eggs under them and they would treat them as their own, even the RIRs eggs.
We had to sell them all unfortunately due to moving, but I know that when I get chickens again, I want some Bantams.

The Bantams were the best mothers. We never lost a chick from that batch, even with having them free roam. Once one of the hens went broody, you could put anybody's eggs under them and they would treat them as their own, even the RIRs eggs.
We had to sell them all unfortunately due to moving, but I know that when I get chickens again, I want some Bantams.

That's the same thing I have heard about the Cochins, which is why I wanted some. Since my hens are free rangers and all on the big side of LF breeds, I am hesitant to run bantys out there with them. I'd worried they would get picked on too much. But Cochins are supposed to be the best brooders out of LF breeds, and same thing, will sit other nests. I brought a pair home last night, a blue laced cockeral and a black pullet. Hopefully going to get a dozen more in a week or two. After that, come spring I will probably segregate the cochin hens with the cochin roo and raise a few broods. Pictures of the two new kids coming shortly!

We didn't have any trouble with the bants get picked on. Everybody got along right away. If there is trouble the bantams stuck up for themselves. Although we only had 3 RIRs, you have more of the big guys.

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the The Horse Forum forums, you must first register.

Already have a Horse Forum account?
Members are allowed only one account per person at the Horse Forum, so if you've made an account here in the past you'll need to continue using that account. Please do not create a new account or you may lose access to the Horse Forum. If you need help recovering your existing account, please Contact Us. We'll be glad to help!

New to the Horse Forum?Please choose a username you will be satisfied with using for the duration of your membership at the Horse Forum. We do not change members' usernames upon request because that would make it difficult for everyone to keep track of who is who on the forum. For that reason, please do not incorporate your horse's name into your username so that you are not stuck with a username related to a horse you may no longer have some day, or use any other username you may no longer identify with or care for in the future.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Old Thread Warning

This thread is more than 90 days old. When a thread is this old, it is often better to start a new thread rather than post to it. However, If you feel you have something of value to add to this particular thread, you can do so by checking the box below before submitting your post.I am aware that this is an old thread and I want to revive it rather than starting a new thread.